As a sex worker and adult film actor, Roc was relieved when he was one of the first Spaniards to be vaccinated against monkeypox. He knew several cases among men who have sex with men, who are the main demographic organization of the disease, and feared that he would be next.
“I went home and thought, ‘Ugh, my God, I’m saved,'” the 29-year-old told The Associated Press.
But it’s too late. Roc, the call he uses for work, had been inflamed by a consumer a few days earlier. He joined the growing number of monkeypox cases in Spain, the highest in Europe since the disease spread a few months ago beyond Africa, where it has been endemic for years.
He began to present symptoms: pustules, fever, conjunctivitis and tiredness. Roc was hospitalized to be cured before recovering enough to be discharged.
The Spanish government and network teams are struggling to stop an outbreak that has already claimed the lives of two young people. They would have died of encephalitis or inflammation of the brain, which can be caused by certain viruses. Most monkeypox infections cause mild symptoms.
Spain has recorded 4,942 cases shown in the 3 months since the outbreak began, which has been linked to two raves in Europe, where experts say the virus likely spread sexually.
The country with more infections than Spain is the United States, which has reported 7,100 cases.
In total, the global outbreak of monkeypox has recorded more than 26,000 cases in about 90 countries since May. There have been 103 suspicious deaths in Africa, mainly in Nigeria and Congo, where a more fatal form of monkeypox is spreading than in the West.
Health experts point out that it is not technically a sexually transmitted infection, although it has basically spread to gay and bisexual men, who account for 98% of cases beyond Africa. person, their dresses or sheets.
So, part of the complexity of fighting monkeypox is finding a balance between not stigmatizing men who have sex with men and making sure vaccines and calls for greater caution are successful in those who are currently most at risk.
Spain has distributed 5,000 injections of the two-vaccine vaccine to fitness clinics and hopes to get another 7,000 from the European Union in the coming days, its fitness ministry said. The EU of the 27 countries has purchased 160,000 doses and provides them to member states as needed. The bloc expects another 70,000 shots fired next week.
In order for these vaccines to be administered wisely, network teams and sexual conditioning teams targeting gay, bisexual and trans men are taking the lead.
In Barcelona, BCN Checkpoint, which focuses on HIV/AIDS prevention in gay and trans communities, is now reaching out to other threatened people to offer them one of the valuable vaccines.
Pep Coll, medical director of BCN Checkpoint, said the vaccine launch is aimed at other people who are already at risk of contracting HIV and are on preventive treatment, men with a high number of sexual partners and those who participate in “chemsex. “(sex with drugs), as well as other people with weakened immune responses.
But there are many more people who have compatibility with those categories than vaccine doses.
“If we take a look at the number of other people [on HIV prophylactic treatment] plus the number of other people living with HIV, we’re talking about another 15,000 people” in Barcelona alone, Coll.
The lack of vaccines, which is much more serious in Africa than in Europe and the United States, makes social public health policies essential, according to experts.
As with the COVID-19 pandemic, contact tracing to identify other people who may have become inflamed is essential. reluctant to report percentages.
“We have a steady flow of new cases, and it’s imaginable that we will have more deaths. For what? Because contact tracing is very confusing because it can be a very delicate factor for someone to identify their sexual partners,” said Amós García. , epidemiologist and president of the Spanish Association of Vaccinology.
Spain says most of its instances involve men who have sex with men, and only 5% are women. But Garcia said it would be balanced unless the entire audience, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, understands that having sexual partners creates a greater risk.
“The same thing happened with AIDS/HIV, when at some point the organization of men who have sex with men was affected to the maximum [before the disease spread to other organizations], and that may be the path it takes if we are not able. to send a strong message to society,” Garcia said.
Given vaccine shortages and contact tracing issues, there is more to inspire prevention.
From the beginning, the government ceded the prominence of the crusade to spread the word to the groups of the network.
Sebastian Meyer, president of the STOP AIDS organization committed to AIDS/HIV care in Barcelona’s LGBTQ network, said the logic was for his organization and others like him to carry a message of acceptance with individual wisdom. of how to carry out physical precaution at home.
While networking teams that make up gay and bisexual men have bombarded social media, websites and blogs with data on the safety of monkeypox, Meyer says there is still a long way to go.
Meyer, who is part of the monkeypox advisory forums for the Spanish national government and for the regional government covering Barcelona, believes fatigue due to the COVID-19 pandemic has played a role.
Doctors advise other people with monkeypox injuries to self-isolate until they are completely healed, which can take up to 3 weeks.
“When other people read that they have to self-isolate, they close the web page and what they have read,” Meyer said. “We’re just coming out of COVID, when you couldn’t do this or that, and now here they are again. . . . People hate it and stick their heads in the sand.
Meyer said his organization is thinking lately about tactics to renew and revive its message.
“If you haven’t decided on a vaccine, the answer is to desperately wait for it to get it,” he said. “The answer is to be more careful. It is much larger than any vaccine.
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